Hero Antagonist

Edit Locked

A Hero Antagonist is a character who is an antagonist (that is, they oppose The Protagonist), yet is still technically a hero. They oppose the main character and may not even have Sympathetic P.O.V., but their objectives are things like saving the world, foiling evil plans, helping the helpless, and otherwise working For Great Justice. A tweaking of the narrative could easily make them a sympathetic protagonist, and thus, a proper example of The Hero.

Usually, this character's main concern is that The Protagonist, either intentionally or not, may bring up a scenario that would spell doom for the world or, depending on the scale of the narrative, a single person. How they come to this conclusion varies. They may be misinformed as to the nature of their enemy. They could be completely correct in their assertions because the main character is a Villain Protagonist. In any of these events, the Hero Antagonist is able to keep their good alignment while still being the narrative's opposition. If the opposition is strictly in a game or a sporting event they even be a good case of Opposing Sports Team.

Examples:

Matsuda is a classic Idiot Hero — impulsive, well-meaning, slightly self-centered everyman who's ultimately devoted to his True Companions. He spends the whole series opposing a serial killer, since he is a cop. He just so happens to be working against Villain Protagonist Light.

Soichiro until towards the end, and he is described by the author as the only one-hundred-percent good character. However neither he nor Matsuda are Light's direct antagonist as such, while L and Near are.

Graham Aker of the Union and later Earth Sphere Federation, with his sportsman-like qualities or rather Samurai-like hence his nickname "Mr. Bushido".

Kati Mannequin of AEU considers Celestial Being's commander Sumeragi to be a Worthy Opponent even if Kati initially views Sumeragi's goals to be unfeasible and too idealistic. not too surprising given how Sumeragi used to serve alongside Kati in the AEU.

A few of the Marine Officers the main characters have to face are genuinely good guys who actually want to protect the public and don't view civilians and their own soldiers as being completely expendable. Notable examples are Smoker and Tashigi (who have practically achieved Friendly Enemy status with the Straw Hats), T-Bone (A Father to His Men), Coby (Luffy's old friend), Garp (Luffy's grandfather), Kuzan (a.k.a. Aokiji) and Issho (a.k.a. Fujitora).

One filler arc included the presence of a rational, normal Marine captain, who had no strange abilities or quirks, but was led by some crazy, immensely fat admiral and his equally stupid lieutenant, who where on par with all the early, lighter One Piece villains.

Commander Jonathan of the G8 filler arc. While he pursues the Straw Hats after they literally drop into the middle of his fortress, he offers mercy to the crewmembers that don't yet have bounties, refuses to treat his men as expendable, and has nothing but disdain for the visiting commanding officer that wants the Straw Hats captured no matter the cost.

Magellan and Hannyabal, the chief warden and vice-chief warden of Impel Down. Their motives are basically to stop the prison break (which was initiated by Luffy) and keep order in the prison.

Former Fleet Admiral Sengoku has done some... questionable things in the past (Ohara), but there is no question that he only does those things for what he feels is for the good of the world. And some part of him has always been suffering for it. He finally retired when the World Government decided to cover up the breakout of several Level Six Impel Down prisoners in order to save their reputation, instead of sending out warnings and wanted posters like he wanted to do.

The Wolkenritter. So here we have a group of "villains" whose malicious goal for filling up the Artifact of Doom was so they can save an innocent Ill Girl from certain death, and they were doing it in a way so they wouldn't kill or severely maim anyone. Problem was, due to reasons beyond their control, it wouldn't have worked without Nanoha's help. Either the Book of Darkness would have killed the girl and reincarnated elsewhere, or Admiral Graham would have frozen them both forever.

Admiral Graham himself. He's a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to stop the Book of Darkness forever. Most previous masters of the Book of Darkness abuses it for their evil ambitions and they used the Wolkenritter as killers.

Monster: Inspector Runge starts out as one, though he turns to more of a standard villain for a while as his search for Tenma becomes more of a personal obsession than anything to do with justice, causing him to ignore the increasing evidence that Johan does exist. However, he eventually comes to his senses and becomes a hero again.

Zechs Merquise from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing; after achieving his initial goal of revenge for the destruction of his homeland and the murder of his parents, sets about trying to realize their goal of a peaceful world — the exact same goal his sister Relena, the show's female lead, is going for. The major difference is that Zechs is a Well-Intentioned Extremist more than willing to hold the Villain Ball in order to scare the planet towards peace — and his personal pride keeps drawing him into battles with protagonist Heero.

Bleach: The entire Seireitei (sans Aizen and company) in the Soul Society arc, if you look at it from their point of view — they're giving out lawful punishment to a criminal, and Ichigo and friends are the equivalent of an armed mob raiding the police station to break her out.

The court in Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. They only want to destroy the water demon that will cause a drought in the land, and none of them are very happy about the fact that the host has to die to do it. It's not really their fault that they don't know the true nature of the possession. They learn otherwise, which ends up aligning them with the heroes instead.

Ryuhou from S Cryed is less evil and more concerned with the welfare of most people than the Jerk with a Heart of Gold protagonist, Kazuma. About half of HOLY qualifies as this, because they either don't know how evil the organization is or believe that it's necessary to bring peace. And since Ryuhou and Kazuma get about equal screen time, Ryuhou is a joint protagonist — several episodes focus on his perspective. He evolves into a protagonist in the episodes following his second battle with Kazuma, but up until then he's just painted as a semi-peaceful well-meaning villain.

Hellsing: Father Alexander Anderson is a Noble Demon and Sociopathic Hero, sure, but he specifically targets vampires and heathens and attempts to keep civilians out of the line of fire, even forfeiting a chance to battle Alucard because of there being too many innocents in the museum. He despises rapists as well, and is willing to escort Integra back to Hellsing Manor "to protect her maiden virtue", which is quite telling after Villain Protagonist Alucard's encounter with Rip Van Winkle. Vatican Section XIII, the Iscariot Organization to which Anderson belongs meanwhile, goes well off the deep end in the manga and OVA by waging another crusade on bothMillennium and all of Protestant England, swinging them into literal Knight Templar territory. This highlights Anderson's own moral compass because he assists in killing his own boss/surrogate son for his crimes.

Kira Yamato qualifies as one in Gundam SEED Destiny, against the Anti-Hero Shinn Asuka, until the supposed role switch after the destruction of Freedom Gundam.

Angel, a.k.a. Tachibana Kanade, in Angel Beats!. The whole thing was a case of Poor Communication Kills, and when they actually sit down and talk to each other they find they have no reason to fight anymore.

Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne has Miyako, her best friend and pursuer, and Chiaki/Sinbad, who tries to stop her from helping the Devil because he is working for God all along.

By the end of Shakugan no Shana, Yuji Sakai with Snake of the Festival are this trope. They get to save the world and make the Flame Haze the bad guys without them knowing it.

Oswald/Glen Baskerville of Pandora Hearts revealed himself to be this and only wants to reverse the effects of what he believes his own naivety caused one hundred years ago. By going through with his plan he would erase a good many characters from the timeline but would also prevent the deaths of countless innocents. Unsurprisingly, Grey and Gray Morality abounds.

Shirakawa, initially a cold Girl Friday to Kurama, secretly she investigates the Director, and seeks to stop his experiments. Even after her death, her information informs her superiors, the Japanese Government of the experiments at the facility and they mobilize against the Director.

The Operatives hate Lucy, and they pilot the vector craft to attack the facility and kill any and all Diiclonius, and retrieve the cure to the disease, which has just been used to infect everyone in the world. They still have no problems with lying and shooting unarmed people as long as they complete their task.

The Agent is initially just a replacement field operative after Bando and The Unknown man were indisposed. She wants to save the world from the diiclonius virus. She opposes the protagonists, but honestly does not care about them, as they're all small in the grand scheme of things. She rescues Arakawa, who has the cure, and risks her own life to get the scientist to safety. Her motivations are notably without the self interest that almost every other character has, she just wants to do the right thing.

The Pride Troopers of Universe 11 in Dragon Ball Super. In a franchise of utter evil foes as well as plain tournament rivals, the Pride Troppers are legit superheroes who not only fight the main characters for a noble reason, saving their universe, but also have a moral leg up on a number of the main characters. Even Goku somewhat sees them this way, being quite willing to be dubbed a villain to their hero.

Comic Books

Argent the Wolf of Grendel, who's opposed to the Villain Protagonist Grendel (particularly Hunter Rose, but later on Christine Spar) as an Anti-Hero Werewolf who is compelled to take down what the series equates to the Devil.

The U.S. military is usually portrayed this way in Incredible Hulk, as they usually genuinely believe that the Hulk is a dangerous monster that they need to stop. Stan Lee commented in an interview that portraying them that way allowed him to get around The Comics Code's insistence that authority figures always be portrayed positively. Afterwards this changed, and there emerged a trend to portray General Ross, who usually commands the anti-Hulk military forces, as a General Ripper.

Some of the New York Police Department to Rorschach in Watchmencould be considered this as they thought that he killed Moloch, with the exception of those who used police brutality just because he made negative remarks about the police in the past and the ones who bribed his landlady to accuse him of sexual harassment.

Susie Derkins from Calvin and Hobbes, but mostly because Calvin makes her the antagonist. Calvin's parents as well, frequently trying to shut down Calvin's more adventurous or destructive plans, because they're his parents and need to maintain at least some discipline.

Superman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns qualifies, as he genuinely tries to do the right thing, but he's a bit too willing to bow to authority for Batman's liking.

The DC Comics supervillain Kobra starred in his own series and his worst enemy was his own twin brother, since they had a psychic bond that prevented Kobra from killing him without dying himself.

Most of Emp's jerkass teammates in Empowered, particularly Sister Spooky (although she becomes more sympathetic and less hostile towards Emp in the later volumes).

An early installment has Nestor the butler as this. He's working for someone he doesn't know is evil, and for much of the plot he actively sabotages Tintin and the Captain.

In nearly all of their appearances, the Thompson Brothers are attempting to arrest Tintin and/or his allies for any assortment of supposed crimes. The only problem is, they're not very good at it.

Ord from Whedon's "Breakworld" arc in X-Men. He seems like an Always Chaotic Evil alien invader at first, but ultimately he's just trying to save his world from destruction. The only reason he is even opposing mutantkind in the first place is because of a prophecy planted by the real Big Bad that a mutant would destroy Breakworld. In the end, he makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save Breakworld from the true Big Bad.

Batman in Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood is just trying to stop Huntress from murdering people, and is willing to seriously consider the possibility that Huntress is innocent of the initial murders, which she is. In the end, he does give her the benefit of the doubt and agrees to let her resolve the situation without any further bloodshed; she proceeds to murder her father in a way that she can't be touched for.

Everybody in Red Fire, Red Planet alternates between this trope and some form of protagonist. It's a war story that presents characters on both sides of the Federation-Klingon War as protagonists when the story is told from their perspective and the enemy when the viewpoint switches to the other side.

Clopin becomes one near the end of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes, everyone's favorite master of ceremonies, who is often cheerful and friendly, and suddenly become a cruel judge presiding over a Joker Jury in the Court of Miracles!

Kerchak from Tarzan is the stern leader of the gorilla tribe who disapproves of Tarzan and forbids him to interact with humans. However, he is only concerned about his family's safety and he is right about some of the humans being dangerous (i.e. Clayton, the true villain of the film).

Captain Gantu in Lilo & Stitch is trying to capture a dangerous escaped experiment, who happens to be the main character's beloved friend.

Elsa the Snow Queen fulfills this role in Frozen in that she drives the conflict, accidentally creating an Endless Winter in the middle of summer when she runs away to the mountains to isolate herself in an attempt to protect everyone else from her powers. Her sister, Princess Anna, has to seek her out so that they could find a way to stop the winter she unknowingly caused.

In GoodFellas, while Jimmy Conway and Tommy are the Big Bad Duumvirate, the police and the law are the true main antagonists, and as standard are more heroic than the gangsters they're trying to apprehend.

US Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones in the role that made him famous): The Fugitive. His quest is to capture the hero, who is a fugitive from justice, whether or not he's innocent of the charge. The character was popular enough to warrent a spin-off sequel, U.S. Marshals, which goes through a similar premise, but is actually starring Gerard.

Apollo Creed in Rocky, who is just an athlete trying to put on a good show for his fans, and, beyond being cocky and looking down on Rocky a little, he's not depicted as being a bad guy. He becomes more morally gray in Rocky II as he becomes more obsessed with definitively proving himself better than Rocky, but he ultimately proves himself to be a good guy by losing gracefully and becoming Rocky's friend.

Martin Prendergast in Falling Down. Unlike Bill Foster, who is on his violent rampage against the petty frustrations of modern society, Det. Prendergast tracks him down while constructively dealing with his own annoyances with empathy and maturity.

Most of the colonial officers and men (such as Commodore Norrington) that oppose Jack Sparrow throughout the Pirates of the Caribbean films, since they are trying to bring a wanted criminal to justice. Cutler Beckett is a total bastard though.

Iceman from Top Gun. He's a git, but he's on our side. He even has a point regarding Maverick being too dangerous. Really, all he wants is what's best for the navy.

Antoine Richis, in Perfume, played by Alan Rickman. Richis is an intelligent nobleman and loving father who tries to protect the city and his beautiful daughter from the protagonist, a serial killer who preys on virginal girls.

Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis in Public Enemies spends the whole movie trying to stop Villain Protagonist John Dillinger. Interestingly, the film undercuts Purvis' competence and implies that Charles Winstead was the agent really responsible for taking Dillinger down. (According to some sources, Winstead may very well have been the agent who actually shot Dillinger.)

The Medjai function this way, at least at first, in The Mummy. While they attack the protagonists, it's only to stop them from awakening Imhotep.

Ditto for Kazim in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He doesn't know Indy's intentions and just wants to protect the grail from falling into the wrong hands, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, he helps out.

Jack Welles from Takers. While the bank robbers were the Villain Protagonists, he's a cop trying to stop them.

FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley fulfills this role in The Town. While he was very much a Jerk Ass and not quite as personally sympathetic as the Villain Protagonists, he was ultimately an FBI agent trying to shut down a ruthless and dangerous gang of bank robbers.

The Negotiator: Kevin Spacey plays a negotiator who tries to negotiate another (rogue) negotiator (protagonist Samuel L Jackson) out of doing something dumb after he holds up some hostages because he was framed for murdering his partner. As far as Spacey is concerned, Jackson is armed, has hostages and is therefore the villain.

Dr. Cawley in Shutter Island, although this isn't revealed until the very end, most of the film playing him like a standard antagonist.

The NYPD in The Warriors, who, unlike the rival gangs, aren't trying to kill the Warriors for money, they're just trying to apprehend dangerous gang members.

The policeman Mitch from First Blood. Unlike the other cops he didn't bully Rambo, but still participated in the hunt for him. To a lesser degree, Col. Trautman, who knows and understands Rambo, and wants him brought in without bloodshed (partly because he alone knows just how much bloodshed will result).

The titular detective from Columbo was depicted this way in his initial appearance in Prescription Murder, the main Sympathetic P.O.V. being on the culprit with the detective not appearing till near halfway through the movie. However the series began developing Columbo's trademark whimsy and wise cracking persona afterwards and, while a lot of spotlight is still usually given to the suspects, Columbo eventually became the lead.

The title character of the old western film Chato's Land, played by Charles Bronson. He is also The Voiceless, having only two speaking scenes in the entire movie – one, extremely brief, at the beginning, and one later in the film, shot entirely in the Comanche language, with no subtitles.

Pamela Landy in The Bourne Supremacy. In the next film, The Bourne Ultimatum, however, she helps blow the whistle on Operation Blackbriar.

The Winkelvoss twins and Divya Narenda in The Social Network. They're both snobs (Narenda being the Token Good Teammate), but the film depicts them as being in the right, since Mark did steal their idea.

The police chasing Maindrian pace in Gone in Sixty Seconds (1974). They're only trying to put a stop to a recent rash of high end car thefts.

The guards in Escape from Alcatraz, who are simply trying to contain a prison full of dangerous criminals. The only completely unsympathetic "good" character in the film is the Warden.

In Thor, S.H.I.E.L.D. is up until the end only screwing up things for both Jane's team and Thor himself. The audience knows they're good guys due to the comics and Iron Man movies, but for the protagonists they seem only like a bunch of intrusive jerks. Thankfully once Thor gets his powers back he states the agents were only misunderstood, and then they decide to help Jane's research.

In Ant-Man, Sam Wilson/The Falcon, a notable superhero in previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films, gets into a fight with Ant-Man when the latter breaks into Avengers HQ to steal a piece of technology to stop the Big Bad Darren Cross. Also, there is police officer Jim Paxton, who tries to arrest Ant-Man due to his criminal background and having escaped incarceration in the film after being arrested for allegedly relapsing to his criminal ways.

X-Men: Apocalypse: Unlike most authority figures in previous X-Men movies, the cops who attempt to bring Magneto in show little malice towards mutants as a whole, and seem solely interested in arresting a terrorist. The death of Erik's daughter is accidental; the result of a cop getting distracted and losing his grip on his bow, and all the cops react with appropriate horror.

Inspector Aberline from The Wolfman (2010). He's just a cop doing his job and trying to stop Lawrence from killing again.

The bearded monk is presented this way in Dracula Untold, abhorring Dracula's nature as a vampire and begging to allow to give him a Mercy Kill, but not realizing that Dracula needs his powers to defend his people from the Turks. By the end, the monk and Dracula take the same side against the evil vampire army.

In Utu the Villain Protagonist Te Wheke holds a personal grudge against one young British Cavalry Officer. Despite working for The Empire, Lt. Scott is a fairly decent character who wants to suppress the Maori rebellion and end the bloodshed. Pet the Dog moments include Scott's love for Kura and friendship with her older brother Wiremu, a Noble Savage.

In Short Circuit, Captain Schroeder may be a Jerk Ass and is hunting down what the viewers know to be a Technical Pacifist robot that has attained intelligence. However, from NOVA's point of view, Number 5 is a rogue Killer Robot with a laser cannon that needs to be stopped by any means necessary. In that light, Schroeder is just doing his job.

In Troy, Hector is pulled into the war by default as his city is attacked by the Greeks. While his little brother, Paris, is far from innocent, Hector himself is the mirror image of our protagonist, Achilles, who is also motivated to duel to defend his younger brother's honor.

Shattered Glass depicts how Stephen Glass was found out to have fabricated several of his article in The New Republic, with Glass as the main character. Chuck Lane, the editor of the magazine, is the one who unravells the web of lies bit by bit over the course of the movie and he fits this trope to a T. Not only is he the antagonist to Glass, the other journalists at the magazine don't like Lane much either and they refuse to believe that what he's saying about Glass is true.

I Shot Jesse James features the character John Kelley, who spends his time as The Rival to main character Robert Ford. However, he's a decent and friendly person, eventually becoming Town Marshal for the town of Creede. It's only when he gets into a Love Triangle with Ford's girlfriend Cynthy Waters that Ford starts to see him as an enemy.

Literature

Holly Short in the first Artemis Fowl is part of fairy law enforcement, opposed to the title Villain Protagonist in his schemes. As later books make Artemis less villainous Holly shifts away from the antagonist role, but is no less heroic.

In Dragon Queen, the old man is a The Mentor archetype trying to force the protagonist to take The Call. His ham-fisted attempts at getting her to come with him on a quest make him an antagonist.

Morgan from The Dresden Files, who watches Harry like a hawk, convinced that he's either a traitor to the White Council or just into Black Magic. At the same time, he's a warrior who will do anything to stop evil and protect the innocent. Eventually, he gets over his distrust of Harry; he still thinks Harry's a loose cannon, sure (and he's not exactly wrong, either), but he sees that Harry's trying to do good. Then, he dies.

Kariya Matou in Fate/Zero. His reason for entering the Grail War and deciding to endure horrible torture and surely die no more than two weeks after the Grail War ends to make up for his lack of training? Because he's the Unlucky Childhood Friend of Tokiomi Tohsaka's wife and he wants to save her daughter, because he knows pretty well what kind of magecraft the Makiri family perfected. Oh, and since he failed, just look what happened to Sakura in Heaven's Feel Route. Granted, his ending and last couple of actions aren't exactly very heroic, but yea, the motive was good.

The Last Hero has this as a major plot point. Cohen and the Silver Horde are traditional fantasy heroes, but they are convinced their plan is bad once an honest man with a simple sword stands alone against them to stop it. This is mainly because they know they're traditional fantasy heroes.

Also a plot point in Witches Abroad, in which wicked witch Granny Weatherwax is the one aiming to stop a fairy godmother trying to force storybook endings onto people. During their encounter, said godmother insists that she's the Good One.

Played with in The Truth, in which the protagonist William de Worde (mind you, not a Villain Protagonist) finds his work as a journalist significalty complicated by one Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch. Most readers will know Vimes to be a thoroughly decent, if perpetually grumpy, person and, as such, can understand where he's coming from.

Moist von Lipwig has a similar relationship with Vimes. Lipwig is a criminal, and Vimes has every reason to be suspicious of him, but in this case he's actually attempting to accomplish something good.

Claude Lebel, the man assigned to catch the eponymous assassin of The Day of the Jackal. After Lebel is introduced, the plot stops following the Jackal exclusively, and is as much Lebel's story as it is the Jackal's, so Lebel goes back and forth between being a Hero Antagonist, and a straight Hero. The Jackal goes back and forth between being a straight Villain and a Villain Protagonist.

Thot Keer in Zero-Sum Game. A Breen shipyard manager, his work crews are developing a prototype starship using stolen Federation technology, and the protagonist's mission is to destroy both prototype and shipyard. Keer is certainly not a villain, though; he is merely a patriot who takes pride in his work, and displays great bravery and (for want of a better term) humanity throughout the novel.

Praetor Gell Kamemor is a Romulan patriot opposed to the Federation politically, but she adamantly disagrees with the notion of Romulan superiority promoted by the Tal Shiar and much of the military. She would rather resolve the conflict with the Federation in the diplomatic arena than on a battlefield. All of her scenes in the series show her as a Reasonable Authority Figure compared to the previous cadre of conniving and backstabbing Romulan politicians.

The entire Jedi Order plays this role in the Darth Bane trilogy as the books focus on the perspective of the Sith Lord and his apprentice Zannah.

Roy Merritt in Daemon. Though we eventually know better, Sobol is a dangerous maniac who employs a menagerie of vicious sociopaths.

Porfiry Petrovich, the brilliant and implacable policeman investigating Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment.

In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Generic Girl and Miss A are the only ones that come after the Inscrutable Machine on their own initiative — Generic Girl genuinely wants to stop crime (even their relatively harmless crimes), but Miss A is just a Jerkass. Mech, Ifrit and Marvelous all show up at different points to disrupt their supervillainy activities as well, but that's more secondary. Mech showed up to stop the Eldritch Abomination they unleashed, Ifrit got dragged in by Miss A and later Marvelous, and Marvelous was actually trying to steal the same thing they were at one point.

In the Daniel Faust series, FBI Special Agent Harmony Black is a straight-shooting, by-the-book crusader who practices witchcraft on the side. She's got a massive hate-on for anyone who uses magic for evil...which, unfortunately, includes Daniel Faust and most of his friends.

In Vampire Academy, Hans Croft, head of the guardians at Croft, punishes Rose and Eddie Castile for their Las Vegas "vacation", is in charge of hunting down an escaped Rose and interrogating her friends. He is an antagonist, but one that ultimately tries to keep everyone at Court safe.

Daniel Keys Moran's Tales of the Continuing Time has Mohammed Vance, a cyborg who works for (and eventually leads) the PeaceForcers, a military and police force by the uber-powerful successor to the United Nations. He totally opposes the main character Trent, is totally ruthless, was responsible for the decision the nuke several hundred people including Trent's family, as well as repeatedly trying to capture and/or kill Trent himself. But he is honorable and truly believes that what he does is making the world a better place. There is a scene in The Last Dancer where he is addressing his military forces prior to a major invasion and telling them why what they are doing is right and why they must defeat their opponents, interspersed with the leader of their opponents addressing her forces and telling them why what they are doing is right and why they must defeat the PeaceForcers, and they are both correct in their arguments.

In the Whateley Universe, the Reverend Darren England, protector of the planet from demonic threats for decades. He's willing to deal with The Syndicate if it means the death of The Kellith, the descendant of a Great Old One, before The Kellith can destroy all life on earth. The only problem is that The Kellith is Carmilla, who is an Anti-Hero protagonist and is trying to go straight.

In The A-Team, Colonel Lynch and later Colonel Decker and General Fullbright all fill this role. Although they oppose the A-Team they're not evil or corrupt. They're good soldiers who are following orders, and they honestly believe that the A-Team are dangerous criminals that must be brought to justice (which is not an entirely unreasonable assumption).

In the Angel episode "Sanctuary" Buffy becomes this. She wants to kill Faith; it doesn't matter if Angel wants to redeem her. The former lovers even come to blows because of it, and part on bad terms.

Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger is this in the first episode of Blackadder the Third, trying to get Prince George struck off the Civil List. He's in the right because George is an Upper-Class Twit who does nothing but waste money, but this puts him up against Edmund Blackadder.

Agent Hank Schrader of Breaking Bad. Something of an interesting case in that he doesn't know the Villain Protagonist he's chasing is his own brother-in-law ...until the middle of the finale season.

Season 1 has two FBI agents tasked with making Michael's (who was "burned" and turned into a villain in the eyes of most of his fellow co-workers) life miserable, and also Jason Bly, a CSS agent who takes up the cause when the FBI backs off.

Detective Paxon in the beginning of season 3 is a sqeaky-clean, by-the-books cop (when Michael & co try to figure out how to blackmail someone and can't, you know they're clean) who is a little tired of Michael blowing things up in her city.

Dani Reese in season 5 is hunting for a killer. Too bad Michael has been framed very convincingly to look like said killer.

Lee Jin Pyo in The City Hunter: His entire black ops team was murdered by their own government,who first denied their existence and then branded them as traitors. As he's a "dead man," he can't work/live in his native Korea. He just wants to expose their corruption and get revenge on the ones who ordered his team's execution.

Sergeant Doakes, though his morality is called into question a few times. Somehow, he's the only one in a precinct full of cops and forensic specialists to get a creepy vibe off serial killer protagonist Dexter. This doesn't end well for him.

Special Agent Frank Lundy in the second season. He probably would have caught Dexter if it weren't for Doakes' suspicious and secretive behavior making him more conspicuous than Dexter.

Detective Quinn is set up as this in season 5. He's the only one in the office who notices that the Mitchell family's sketch drawings of "Kyle Butler" look a lot like Dexter, and starts to suspect that Dexter may have killed Rita, his wife. At the end of the season, he abandons his investigation when Dexter gets him off the hook for a murder that Quinn is erronously suspected of (in fact, Dexter himself committed the murder), and he falls in love with Debra.

Stan Liddy in season 5. Although he's a Dirty Cop, and is trying to expose Dexter mostly for his own benefits so that he will be reinducted into the police force, he is still trying to catch a serial killer. Dexter kills him, and Quinn is subsequently suspected of the murder.

Maria Laguerta in season 7. She discovers evidence that may expose Dexter as the real Bay Harbor Butcher, and starts her own investigation. Dexter tries to kill her, and Debra shoots LaGuerta to cover up for her brother.

In the second season of Dollhouse, Senator Daniel Perrin tries to expose the corrupt Rossum corporation, the Dollhouse's main benefactor. Until it turns out that he's a Doll imprinted to investigate the Dollhouse so that he can "discover" convincing evidence that it doesn't exist and exonerate Rossum.

Peacekeeper Commander Scorpius of Farscape swings somewhere between here, Well-Intentioned Extremist and Villain Has a Point. His one driving goal is to stop the advance of the Scarrans, a brutal and murderous race who are known to have ordered a systematic raping of women from another race to guage whether it was worth keeping them alive as breeding stock (answer: no, because the halfbreed physiology kills the mother and normally the child on birth) and to be willing allies with the Charrid (a race of Orcs In Space who are infamous for attacking the harmless Hynerians and devouring 80 million of their young before being driven off by waves of suicide attackers). He believes the key to this is mastering wormholes, via information locked in the brain of the human John Crichton. To this end, he is willing to chase Crichton to the ends of the galaxy and Mind Rape him into giving up this info, though this is only because Crichton will not countenance simply cooperating with Scorpius and giving him the wormhole technology peacefully.

Most of the less-developed alliance officers in Firefly, who are unaware of the alliance's atrocities and are just trying to capture a band of criminals, such as the captain of the Alliance cruiser in the pilot episode: he tries to capture the Serenity's crew for conducting illegal salvage, but immediately breaks off to respond to a (phony) distress beacon because he thinks lives are in danger.

The PCPD usually fulfills this role in Sonny Corinthos' case (such as his son, Detective Dante Falconeri, who's on good terms with Sonny, but will still arrest him and investigate when it's called for) as well as innocent civilians who badmouth him for his criminal activities (such as Jasper "Jax" Jacks, Dr. Patrick Drake, Michael Corinthos/Quartermaine, the surviving Quartermaines, etc.).

Ex-Police Commissioner/FBI Agent Anna Devane is probably the most prominent one in law enforcement.

Dante's partner and friend Ronnie Dimestico was a particularly irritating example of this, constantly giving Sonny trouble and berating Dante for not doing more to secure an arrest and conviction against Sonny. He even went as far as to transfer to the PCPD when now Ex-Commissioner Mac Scorpio hired Dante on. Then Ronnie was revealed as the biggest hypocrite of all time. Not only did he conceal evidence to make it look like Sonny tried to kill Johnny Zacchara (who he actually shot in self-defense), but was later revealed to also be a serial rapist and murderer and the one who tried to shoot Dante, but shot Sonny instead! He's dead now. He's not missed.

Sonny's trial for Claudia Zacchara's murder was prosecuted by Claire Walsh, a federal prosecutor who Jax got assigned to the trial. Even after Sonny was revealed to be innocent, she still sought to get him locked up. Sonny was able to get her to fall for him and soften her heart.

Judge Peter Carroll oversaw the trial and after it weas revealed that Michael killed Claudia in self-defense, he sentenced him to five years just because he was frusterated at how much of a mockery the trial made of the legal system.

John McBain was this for a brief time to Sonny (until it was revealed that it was Joe Sully Jr., and not Sonny, who murdered McBain's sister).

Judge David Walters, a Knight Templar who handles custody hearings. He gave custody of Sonny's daughter Avery to Michael (the grandson of the woman he is dating), but earlier on he held a personal bias and stake against Maxie Jones in the custody case pertaining to her daughter. He sort of applies as Heel–Face Revolving Door as he did eventually let her get joint custody of her daughter (though under the threat of his girlfriend losing her job unless he gave in). His Freudian Excuse (his daughter, who was reckless and impulsive like Maxie, died in a car crash) is more than understandable.

After FBI Agent Tom Rainer (who extorted Jason by having Spinelli arrested for the hacking he did) came Ex-FBI Agent/Ex-Police Commissioner Kyle Sloan. Though since then, he's corrupt. Though he still values justice to a degree, he crossed into criminal territory by rigging the Mayoral election so that Anna would be fired and he would get her job. Plus, he only dropped the charges against Jake Doe/Jason Morgan (who was controlled by Helena Cassadine) under the condition that he infiltrate the Jerome Crime Family. Though he's doing it all for a good cause, it's a hypocritical venture. He recently started working far more closely with Anna again though, so now, he's a straight example again.

Former Mayor Garrett Floyd was this, but his pompous and ambitious attitude did not make him likable.

Many of the antagonists are just working to bring down King Uther, who is undoubtably a tyrant.

Arthur occasionally lapses into this. While he's undoubtedly The Hero, he has been raised from birth to be distrustful of magic and will not hestitate to arrest anyone caught using it, even though the penalty is death. What seperates him from Uther is that he does this not out of maliciousness, but because it is his Father's law and he's honour bound to obey it.

Agent Victor Henriksen on Supernatural spends the better part of two seasons chasing Sam and Dean Winchester, believing them to be dangerous serial killers. He's a good agent and a good guy, but doesn't know that he's living in a Crapsack World where things like demons and skin-walkers exist — eventually he finds out in his last appearance on the show.

24 has CTU or any other law enforcement agency whenever Jack Bauer has to go rogue or is set up (which is a lot)

Wizards of Waverly Place is driven by the three protagonists being this for each other. Even so with Alex, whose the nearest the series has to a recurring main villain, and her by-the-book brother Justin.

Mythology

Older Than Feudalism: Hector in The Iliad. The Trojans are portrayed far more sympathetically than the Greeks, Achilles finds redemption instead of punishment at the end, and the narrative ends with Hector's funeral. At the end of the day he's trying to defend his home over his brother's folly and the Greeks' warmongering.

Professional Wrestling

Kevin Steen during the RoHCZW feud, at least from the CZW perspective, where the baby faces, the closest thing to "heroes" in pro wrestling, were out to destroy another company because arenas catered to it more and Chris Hero had a personal vendetta against one of their owners. Steen was a traitor who made it clear on multiple occasions he didn't want to be contracted under CZW but when the CZW owner and wrestlers continued to make use of the nationally banned weed wacker as well as torture a member of the other roster, it's hard to say he wasn't right, even if he could have been far less whiny about it.

Theater

Charlie, the anvil salesman, from The Music Man. He's trying to expose a con man looking to run off the townspeople's money and, as result, makes doing business impossible and even dangerous for the legitimate salesmen who follow.

Macduff, from Macbeth, being a loyal servant of the crown compared to the Villain Protagonist Macbeth. Macbeth also had Macduff's family murdered, making Macduff's opposition much more personal.

Video Games

Agent Edgar Ross from Red Dead Redemption. At the core, he wants to bring law, order, and civilization as well as round up all those who seek to destroy it. Were he not the antagonist, we would likely think he's onto something, perhaps even root for him in secret. However, this is subverted at the end, when he chooses to forgo his deal with John and raids his farm, killing him anyway. When Jack hunts him down post-game, he shows no remorse, and blames John's death on John himself for even choosing to be an outlaw in the first place, despite his desire to change for the better.

Cyrus Temple from Saints Row: The Third. His evil plot? To restore order by stopping gang wars. You are a member of a gang, and thus that makes him the antagonist. Were this any other game, he'd be the good guy.

In Deus Ex, after you defect from UNATCO, any cop or U.S. or UNATCO soldier that truly believes he is fighting for the greater good and is not flat out sadistic or part of the conspiracy, fits this trope.

A smaller example in Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the police station level. If you don't talk your way in and either sneak in through the back, or shoot your way through, the Detroit police serve as this. They are not aware of the conspiracy surrounding the dead hacker; they're just following orders.

Hakumen from BlazBlue, one of the Six Legendary Heroes who saved the world from the attack of The Black Beast. He wants to prevent a rebirth of The Black Beast by killing Ragna. He is not open to alternative solutions. However, in quite a few character's stories — Taokaka's and Bang's, for example — he pretty much attacks them because he can, and he doesn't hold back at all; in Bang's case, if the player loses the "bossfight" against Hakumen, Bang actually dies of the injuries Hakumen inflicts on him, even though at their power levels, Bang is practically no threat to him at all. Also, like the actual Samurai, Hakumen possesses a bizarre and at times quite brutal view of "justice" that makes sense only to him, which justifies many of his clashes with other good characters. Hakumen is a textbook example of Good Is Not Nice at his best, and an actual villain at his worst.

Jowy Atreides, from Suikoden II. A long time friend of the main hero, Riou, he is destined to come into conflict due to picking up opposing runes (Jowy picks up the Black Sword Rune and Riou the Bright Shield Rune). Jowy ends up betraying and murdering (although not willingly) the mayor of Muse, Anabelle. He ends up becoming king of Highland. He ends up as a Hero Antagonist because he helps bring down Luca Blight, as well as using his strength to keep the Beast Rune at bay. He ends up having the same goals as Riou, to end the war and to unify the land. The problem is that he and his friend, Riou, lead opposing forces. His love of the orphan Pilika truly drives Jowy in his goals for peace.

King Dedede in Kirby's Adventure, whose bid to seal the evil of the week by removing the Star Rod from the Fountain of Dreams was misinterpreted as villainous by Kirby.

Landia in Kirby's Return to Dream Land initially seems like nothing but a destructive beast, but it is actually the guardian of the Master Crown, an Artifact of Doom that possesses infinite power, and the heroes are being manipulated by Magolor into defeating it so he can claim the crown for himself.

Harpuia from Mega Man Zero. He even prefers to be destroyed than to be possessed by a manifestation of evil in the second game. By extension, Harpuia's fellow Guardians, Leviathan, Fefnir and Phantom, as well as all of the Bosses prior to Zero 3. They were only following orders for the sake of protecting humanity. No longer really applies as of Zero 3, at least for Leviathan, Fefnir, and Phantom, as all three are stated to have stopped caring about anything other than their obsession with defeating Zero.

Knuckles in certain games, in particular those where he is tricked by Dr Eggman into stopping Sonic. He eventually realises he has been duped, and usually reverts to a side protagonist for the remainder of the story.

Downplayed with G.U.N. in Sonic Adventure 2. Despite wanting to protect global stability, GUN is part of a Government Conspiracy, committed some serious crimes, and is willing to endanger citizens just to catch Sonic.

Velvet from Odin Sphere, against both Ragnanival and Ringford. Given Gwendolyn and Mercedes are guilty of most of the incidents of Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! in the story (Velvet causes very little herself), she's rather justified.

Gordon Freeman and Cpl Adrian Shepherd are the protagonists of different Half-Life games, working to opposing ends. Shep wants to catch Freeman, for starters, and Freeman has nuked a number of soldiers.

Subverted in Disgaea 3. Mao is a Villain Protagonist (Noble Demon type), and Super Hero Aurum is originally portrayed as some legendary super hero. The subversion occurs around Chapter 8, when the player discovers that Aurum is nothing but a big phony who's so foul that even demons scorn him (especially his transformation).

In one Rikti War Zone/Vanguard arc of City of Heroes, rival organization Longbow becomes full-on Hero Antagonists. In sister game City of Villains Longbow is only one of many such organizations, thanks to the Villain Protagonist nature of that game's characters.

The Queen Fay and the Elves of the Everlight Sanctuary in Overlord II, even though the Elves are, for the most part, whiny hippies concerned mostly with protecting cute and furry creatures. Eventually, while sacrificing her energy to help the Overlord defeat The Empire, she is corrupted by his magic and becomes a Fallen Hero who decides that Evil Feels Good.

With the exception of Leon, the Imperial Army of Yggdra Union are actually honest and sometimes heroic characters who are simply fighting for their own beliefs.

Persona 4 has Taro Namatame, who started kidnapping people after the death of Saki Konishi due to being tricked into believing that TV World was a shelter from the true killer, not knowing that everyone he threw into the TV was saved due to the efforts of the main character and his friends. The player, at the behest of the party who are convinced he's the real killer, can either punish him by tossing him into the TV and letting him get slaughtered by Shadows (leading to the worst ending), or hear him out, where they will learn his side of the story and he, in turn, will understand what he's done and willingly accepting the consequences.

Persona 5 features the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, along with celebrity teenage detective Goro Akechi and prosecutor Sae Niijima, opposing our Anti-Hero Team of Phantom Thieves. While Akechi can act irritatingly smug and Sae is shown to sometimes be rather aggressive, their motives are still sympathetic, and, even if it's for the greater good, the Phantom Thieves are still committing crimes — it's the police force's job to stop them. This ends up subverted with the first two accounts. The government and police are corrupt to the extreme, and Akechi is a fraud murderer in the pocket of said corrupt government. Sae, meanwhile, does a Heel–Face Turn after the main character appeals to her in the interrogation that serves as the story's framing device.

The Metal Gear series is so full of lies and deceptions (and lots of RetCons very well disguised as such) that you can never really tell who is on which side, or even which sides there are. The prime example would be The Boss in MGS 3 whose heroic identity is only revealed after being killed by the protagonist.

In Imperishable Night the Stage 4 boss is either Reimu or Marisa, the two standard protagonists, who will blame you for the current incident and attempt to stop you.

In Mountain of Faith Sanae didn't know the Hakurei Shrine was key to Gensokyo's survival; she saw competition for the faith her gods needed to survive, from a Miko who wasn't even protecting humanity from the youkai. So she tried to shut down the Hakurei Shrine, and got her ass (and her gods') kicked.

In both Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, almost every character ends up fighting either Reimu or Marisa at some point in their story mode.

In Undefined Fantastic Object, the ancient mage the antagonists were trying to unseal turns out to be a Buddhist monk seeking to bring peace and harmony to Youkai. And she still fights you as the final boss.

The Watatsuki sisters, Toyohime and Yorihime, from the Spin-Off manga Silent Sinner in Blue. They're just trying to protect their home from invaders, with Reimu implicitly threatening to kill everyone on the moon at one point to make Yorihime take the fight seriously, and admits she will probably lose to Yorihime because the bad guys always lose, and they are the ones at fault in that incident. But because of the way the narrative is presented along with their Fantastic Racism, many readers came away thinking them as villains.

In Hopeless Masquerade Kokoro is actually trying to stop the Hate Plague, because it's her Power Incontinence that's causing it. Meanwhile all the other characters are trying to exploit it for their own ends, be it to advance the power of their shrine, as an excuse to beat people up, or just to mess with people for giggles.

General Warfield in StarCraft II, in stark contrast with his predecessor Edmund Duke. The literally only reason Warfield is featured as an antagonist in some missions is because he is working for ArcturusMengsk. Other than that, he puts The Men First, is concerned about protecting the population of the Dominion and is remarkably brave. While he initially isn't happy when Prince Valerian asks him to collaborate with Jim Raynor, they get along quite well after getting to know each other. His death screamsAlas, Poor Villain.

Some parts of the campaign in Warcraft III and its expansion have the player control a villainous army, making the enemy army a Hero Antagonist. This is most blatantly during the Scourge campaign, though the Horde and Night Elf campaigns tend to paint heroes from other factions in this light as well.

World of Warcraft: Depending what faction you play, certain NPCs will come off this way. For example, in Icecrown Citadel, the two factions fight each other aboard their respective airships, each one lead by a hero from each; Muradin Bronzebeard for the Alliance, and Varok Saurfang for the Horde. Both are well-respected and honorable figureheads within each faction and both seek to climb Icecrown to stop the Lich King, but tensions between the factions force them into combat with one another.

Araman from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. From his point of view, unless the protagonist can be stopped somehow, the world will end. And, Okku, for pretty much the same reason. However, if you decide to spare him after the final fight against him, he'll decide to help you.

The police in any illegal street racing game, such as Need for Speed, are just trying to stop the reckless player characters from putting them and others in needless danger.

Riku serves as one in Days, where the story is told from the perspective of a Punch-Clock Villain working for the bad guys.

In Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, The Nebulox are fighting against Isa and Kachi to help the humans of Earth-5. Also, from their perspective, Kachi is a major danger to their entire civilization — she was originally sent to Inner Space to recon Earth-4 for attack, but lost her memory.

Axel Almer in Super Robot Wars Original Generation in the enhanced remake becomes a Noble Demon whose greatest concern is to defeat a monstrous man (Beowulf) responsible for numerous atrocities in his (Axel's) home world. Even moreso in The Anime of the Game, where said monstrous man's first scene involves crossing the Moral Event Horizon. Then, in the opening credits, Axel fights off the main character (Kyosuke), under justification that he won't let another Beowulf be created from Kyosuke (Beowulf is Kyosuke's Alternate UniverseEvil Twin). By the time of the Gaiden Game, he drops the 'Antagonist' part while keeping the same goal (growing an 'Anti' in the front instead due to not being officially in the protagonist team).

Ash from Atelier Iris 3 simply wants to use the Escalario to stop Uroborus from awakening. To do this, he tries to kill Edge and Nell, and kidnap Iris, the only person able to use the Escalario.

Saladin, the captain of the guard at the Castle of the Crown in King's Quest VI, is perhaps the noblest of all the characters in the game. He has an antagonistic role only because he has been deceived by Alhazred and has a strong sense of duty regarding his job, and he does eventually wise up.

Alakazam and his team in Red/Blue Rescue Team. When the protagonist and teamate end up being tossed into exile, Alakazam and his team are the leaders of the hunt for the protagonist's head.

Palkia in Explorers of Time and Darkness, who thinks that the hero is threatening to destroy the universe. It turns out that he was tricked: Darkrai was the one threatening to destroy everything, and he made it look like it was the hero's fault.

The freeware indie game Akuji the Demon has the final boss being the hero who defeated and banished you into the dungeon.

Milleuda Folles actually has very good reasons to fight the nobility of Ivalice, she's just too stubborn in opposing Ramza and is killed for it.

Wiegraf is one of these during the prologue and remains so to a lesser extent, later in the story. He starts out as a Holy Knight fighting against the aristocracy for very justifiable reasons. His only really even vaguely selfish or villainous actions are his attempts to take revenge on Ramza for killing his sister, but Wiegraf also doesn't know that Ramza tried to avoid killing her. Wiegraf later becomes a Fallen Hero, however, as revenge drives him off the slippery slope.

Zalmour Lucianada also goes after Ramza because he really thinks he's guilty of murdering Cardinal Delacroix.

We have Isilud and Meliadoul Tengille too, who oppose Ramza not knowing the truth about his intentions.

Battle for Wesnoth features campaigns like Descent to Darkness where many antagonists are heroes trying to defeat the necromancers.

In Fallout 3 the Brotherhood of Steel becomes one if you destroy the Citadel. The Regulators will hunt down the player if s/he has Evil Karma.

The censors in Psychonauts are mental antibodies. They're supposed to stamp out foreign influences. Like normal antibodies, they can't really distinguish things except as "native" and "foreign", even if "foreign" is a friendly psychic.

The Knights Templar in Immortal Souls are definitely good guys, as the only group actually devoted to actively fighting the "shadow creatures", which are almost all malevolent and/or mindless and devoted to harming humanity. But since they have a hard time accepting the "almost" in the "almost all" — and their leader is a major Good Is Not Nice jerkass to boot — that brings them into constant conflict with the two good vampires that are the main protagonists.

Unlike the original film TRON, security programs in TRON 2.0 are not servants of the evil MCP. Here, they're simply doing their job of protecting the system from The Virus. Unfortunately, Kernel, the chief security program, thinks you are the cause of the infection and tries to hunt you down, forcing you to fight security programs.

In Metroid Prime: Hunters, two of your six rivals, Noxus and Spire, are good guys. Samus wants to secure the "ultimate power" in the area for The Federation, or destroy it if that's not possible. Noxus is trying to destroy it to keep it out of the hands of anyone who would abuse it (and considering the events of Metroid: Fusion, he may not be wrong in including the Federation). Spire hopes that by finding it, he can learn more about why he's the Last of His Kind. Despite them all having good intentions for what to do with it, they end up fighting each other anyway.

Balthazar from Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, who, unlike most of the Bhaalspawn who are trying to seize the former God of Murder's power, is actually trying to rid the world of Bhaal's taint by destroying all other Bhaalspawn and then committing ritual suicide. If you're playing an evil character, he's got a good point. Sadly, if you're good, you can't persuade him that you can handle Bhaal's power without turning evil and he attacks you anyway. (One of the design directors for Throne of Bhaal did a mod, Ascension, where this becomes a possibility. You can even turn him into an ally for the final battle.)

Imperial characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic face a number of these: good, honorable Republic forces and Jedi looking to protect the galaxy from the Empire. This is complicated by the fact you can play any character as Light (good) or Dark (bad). The Bounty Hunter in particular has Jedi Master Jun Seros as their primary antagonist, though he's a Holier Than ThouKnight Templar at best.

In Syberia a disillusioned office worker tells her husband and employers, over the telephone, that she is going into the arctic circle, unprepared, to look for a fairy tale. The private detective chasing her for most of the story is trying to save her life.

Loghain from Dragon Age: Origins is a bona-fide hero of Ferelden, fighting only to keep the realm independent of any foreign influence, particularly Orlais (which had ruled Ferelden with an iron fist for quite some time). He was a faithful right hand to king Maric, and thought up most of the winning strategies in the king's war of independence. The only problem is that he does not understand (nor wants to understand, apparently) the threat of the Blight nor the importance of the Grey Wardens, and therefore every action he takes inadvertently weakens his beloved kingdom, which is why the player's team must stop him.

The Eldar in the vanilla campaign are trying to stop a powerful daemon from being unsealed. Being Eldar however they never actually tell anyone this is their plan, and the Blood Ravens kill them in order to progress in their mission. Similarly in Dawn of War II the Eldar are trying to stop the Tyranid swarm just as the Blood Ravens are; unfortunately their plan involves luring them onto the planets and then blowing them up, while the Blood Ravens are trying to save the planets.

Dark Crusade, depending on which faction the player picks, can have them go against the Eldar (fighting to stop the Necrons from being unsealed and stopping anyone who would unseal them, even accidentally), the Imperial Guard (liberating the humans of the world from alien oppression), and/or the Tau (defending their colony world from alien invaders). Space Marines Vs Imperial Guard plays this for maximum tragedy, as they're both Just Following Orders and cannot back down. The Space Marines themselves however are not an example, as they're only fighting to conceal incriminating secrets from their Chapter's past.

Soulstorm has the same "Risk"-Style Map as Dark Crusade, with the Imperial Guard, Tau and Eldar making reappearances, and the Space Marines are actually heroic (if incompetent) this time. The Sisters of Battle are a blurry case; they're fighting to rid the Kaurava of all Chaos and alien taint, but their solution is to Kill 'em All and let the Emperor sort them out.

Retribution bizarrely only has this for the tutorial mission for the evil factions (Orks against Eldar, Chaos against Space Marines, Tyranids against Imperial Guard), and one mission where the player fights a bunch of Eldar trying to stop the Exterminatus (which the player only learns after the fact). For every other mission the player fights against evil aliens or Chaos-corrupted renegades no matter which faction is picked.

Grünfeld Bach from Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. A deeply devout German vampire hunter, who has seen both his father and grandfather killed by the same vampire, has travelled across the world to eliminate that vampire, and is willing to do what it takes to do it. Granted, several of Bach's actions are questionable (above all the abduction of Ingvar Johannsen) but if your character wasn't one of said vampire's Elite Mooks, chances are good you'd be cheering for him.

A lot of characters could be called Hero Antagonists, as the only reason you get attacked at all is Asgore's declaration of war on humanity. While he bears no ill will to humanity, the war is the only thing giving monsterkind hope that they can one day return to the surface. If they kill you and take your soul, then they can break the barrier and return.

Yandere Simulator has several characters who would love to stop the Stalker With a CrushVillain Protagonist by any means necessary. For example, the Photography Club is normally silly and goofy up until you bring the School Atmosphere to a certain point. If it's too low, they will actively investigate the going-ons at school and walk around with a camera in search of the killer. It even extends to fairly minor characters: if a teacher knows you are connected to a murder, they will pin you to the ground. Students with a "Heroic" persona will jump in to stop you if you kill someone in front of them. Even if they aren't Heroic, they can still spread rumors about what happened if left unchecked. The backstory also has the Journalist, who connected the protagonist's mother to her own crimes, only to be falsely accused of being a pervert who wanted a sensational headline. When he tried to bring her to justice years later, he had to flee the country because she found out.

In the Ace Attorney series, the prosecutors that aren't Amoral Attorneys only argue against the protagonist's case because they genuinely believe the defendant is guilty. Some will even help the defense as much as legally allowed if they can be convinced of the defendant's innocence.

In what is possibly the most controversial application of this trope, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has your player character, a US Army Ranger in disguise as a Russian terrorist, shooting at Russian Federal Security Bureau agents towards the end of the level No Russian. It's hard to blame them for shooting at you, given that they're trying to stop you and your terrorist cell from killing anymore civilians.

An indirect example in Pikmin 3 has previous protagonist Captain Olimar find the cosmic key drive, a necessary item if the crew is to get off the planet. Most of the the game focuses on finding him. A more direct example would be Louie, if he did anything more heroic than steal the crews food supply.

In Halo 2, your first two missions as the Arbiter involve wiping a group of Covenant "heretics". As it turns out, said heretics were actually trying to save all life in the galaxy by revealing the truth about what the Halos actually do.

In Dark Watch's evil ending, Cassidy becomes this if you decide to steal the Big Bad's power for yourself and she turns on you to stop the Curse of the West from spreading. During the whole game she serves as a disembodied voice that guides you, but she turns into an angel of light as the final boss in that ending.

Darkest Dungeon gives us the Fanatic in the Crimson Court DLC, a Vampire Hunter who has a chance to spawn in any given dungeon if one of your heroes has the Crimson Curse effect. The game makes it clear that despite the noble cause of killing off the bloodsuckers, He Who Fights Monsters is in full effect as he makes no hesitation in murdering your other party members even if they don't have the status. To say nothing of the background changing to a field of burning people and corpses.

Berk appears at first as Gwynn's weird and annoying new boyfriend, but then, in the chapter "K'Z'K", tries to assassinate several main characters — because he's been sent from the future to stop them from causing The End of the World as We Know It by summoning the demon K'Z'K.

Othar Tryggvasen (Gentleman Adventurer!). His stated goal of killing all the world's Sparks, ending finally with him committing suicide, appears to place him squarely in the realm of being a Villain with Good Publicity. It is only when one looks at how nearly every Spark he has ever encountered has acted that it becomes clear that his actions are fully justified. In one possible future timeline, his failure to complete his self-appointed mission results in the apparent eradication of human life in Western Europe, apparently within a few years of the main storyline. On the other hand, his twitter has him killing a college student and her father (because she was a spark and he said that the worst thing that could happen to a parent is their child to die before he did), derailing a train and becoming a Cop Killer.

Klaus Wulfenbach is almost the Only Sane Man in Europe, which means that he's got to play whack-a-mole with every crazed Spark or creation that gets loose. He is half-rightly convinced that Agatha could be the Biggest Bad of all time — the spark that destroyed most of Europe while he was removed from the picture decades ago and who may have the secrets of time travel on top of a host of other horrifying technologies. If he's right, he has to destroy her to save the world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the full picture, and the pieces he knows look really bad for Agatha. Of course, as Agatha is the protagonist, she isn't about to tamely sit down and let him hold her.

Everybody has an "Evil Twin", right? Well, these guys see our Weatherlight crew as theirevil twins and act accordingly. They're not villains, per se, but everybody hates them.

Last Res0rt features Jason Spades, a hero on his home planet of Fenirel who happens to want to viciously kill Daisy to the exclusion of everything else, even if 'everything else' is something like getting the rest of the crew (including himself!) off an enemy ship alive.

The Insurrectionists/Charon Industries are this in the prequel segments of Red vs. Blue, in opposition to the Freelancers, who are Villain Protagonists at that point. Later revelations show that Charon is just as bad if not worse than Freelancer, CEO Malcolm Hargrove being a Corrupt Corporate Executive more than willing to exterminate an entire planetary population to get his hands on alien tech (and had a hand in shutting down Project Freelancer for much the same purpose) while the surviving Freelancers have become firm heroes.

Zetto from TOME. It turns out that throughout Season 1, his goal has been to surpress and erase the Forbidden Power by hiring hackers to find it/steal the necessary resources to seal away the Forbidden Power.

Tim from Marble Hornets temporarily becomes this towards the end of season 3, as Jay begins to become less stable and more paranoid.

On The Nostalgia Critic commentary on Disney Afternoon, Doug confirmed that Tamara was this while Critic was the Villain Protagonist, and that it was creepy that fans think Malcolm and her deserve what he does to them.

Captain Lovelace from Wolf 359 spends a lot of time in this role. Despite being an obvious threat, her motivations are sympathetic, and the clashes between her and the rest of the crew often end with it unclear who's actually in the right.

Dib from Invader Zim is between a Hero Antagonist and Deuteragonist. A paranormal investigator trying to prevent the alien Zim from taking over the world, there are numerous Villain Episodes where Dib is the main character, making him the protagonist (and usually casting Zim as the antagonist) a good portion of the time. He and Zim team up almost as often as they fight, and a fair number of episodes are about Dib dealing with other stuff while Zim makes only a cursory appearance.

Kyle usually serves this when an episode focuses on Cartman, because he's the closest thing the show has to a moral compass. Expect there to be traces of He Who Fights Monsters.

Kenny takes this role in "Poor and Stupid", because Cartman's antics as a NASCAR driver are tarnishing the sport's reputation, and Kenny loves NASCAR. Similar to Kyle however, he reverts to such overzealous extremes as trying to shoot Cartman with a rifle.

Candace in Phineas and Ferb dedicates herself to stopping the title characters' plans because their mother wouldn't like them, although "Anti-Hero Antagonist" might fit better, as their plans rarely even inconvenience anyone and she's doing it for her own self-gratification.

The Road Runner is one of the most iconic Hero Antagonist of Western Animation; the shorts granted little character to the bird outside his fast speed and his trademark "Beep Beep", and all sympathetic spotlight was deliberately kept on its predator, Wile E. Coyote.

Bugs and Speedy occasionally leaned into this trope, with many of their respective shorts focusing more on the blundering of their foes.

In "Fresh Hare", Elmer Fudd is only chasing Bugs because he is a mountie and Bugs has been charged with crimes. In "Big House Bunny", Bugs escapes hunters but ends up tunneling into a prison. Yosemite Sam is the guard and only goes after Bugs because he believes Bugs is an escaped prisoner.

In some Daffy Duck cartoons, Porky Pig is an authority figure such as a police officer trying pursuing Daffy for his antics. While the nature of some of his "crimes" can be rather disproportionate (in "Daffy Doodles" for example he becomes Public Enemy Number One for painting mustaches on advertisement posters) Porky is clearly the higher moral ground.

The Yankee Doodle Pigeon of Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was implied to be of heroic alliance, delivering important messages to squadrons. However, his role rarely exceeded outside blowing his patriotic trumpet and giving bewildered glances to the Vulture Squadron's blundering attempts to "Stop That Pigeon".

Ranger Smith from Yogi Bear. All he's trying to do is keep Yogi and Boo Boo from stealing food from the campers at Jellystone Park. A few cartoons show that he cares for them and gets upset if he thinks they're in trouble.

Xander Crews from Frisky Dingo, also known as the superhero Awesome X. He's also one of the biggest dicks in a show made almost entirely of dicks, sometimes more than Killface himself (who kills one of his PR reps in the first episode and then uses the guy's remains as a ventriloquist dummy in front of his twin brother).

Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender is only chasing the Avatar with Zuko out of concern for his nephew and a hope to guide him to a better path. He refrains from actually coming into conflict with Aang and his group himself despite being a master firebender and retired general. In season two, where Zuko is more of a neutral figure, he's more frequently heroic or at least calming before eventually even working with the group before Zuko does. Overall, his presence has an incredible amount of influence over Zuko, who ends up reforming when he realizes that his father's approval is worthless.

Top Cat: Officer Dribble, er, Dibble. The protagonist, T.C., is a con-artist and leader of a street gang! Of cats.

The Centauri Empire officers in the Teen Titans episode Sisters only attacked the Titans due to misunderstanding that they thought Starfire was committing a thievery on their solar system when in truth, Blackfire was the one doing it and framed Starfire for it. Once that was cleared off, they successfully capture Blackfire and then never threatened the Earth anymore, therefore they're pretty much their planet's good police doing their job. Their conversation also kinda imply this:

Officer: In the name of the Centauri Empire, you are all under arrest! Beast Boy: Uh... you can't be the good guys. We're the good guys. Officer: And we are the Centauri police!

In The Brothers Grunt, the titular brothers Frank, Tony, Sammy, Bean, and Ding frequently ran afoul of a detective trying to turn them in for the trouble they inadvertently cause on their quest to find their brother Perry.

G.I. Joe: Renegades has Flint in this role, as he keeps trying to arrest Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, and Tunnel Rat because they are fugitives who have been framed by Cobra.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy